The Black Mile Read online

  THE BLACK MILE

  By Mark Dawson

  Also by Mark Dawson

  The Art of Falling Apart

  Subpoena Colada

  Praise for The Art of Falling Apart

  ‘Ultra-addictive, super-stylish – this is a viciously good novel.’ Toby Litt

  ‘A thrillingly accurate glimpse into the dark depraved heart of rock and roll.’ Xfm

  ‘A talent to be watched.’ Birmingham Post

  ‘A brilliant debut novel from a very promising writer.’ Subject

  ‘Grips you like the Boston Strangler’s handshake – essential.’ Later

  ‘An impressive first novel – edgy vibrancy.’ Manchester Evening Post

  ‘A classic.’ RTE

  The right of Mark Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Black Dog Publishing: [email protected]

  FOR MRS D

  PART ONE

  “BLACKOUT”

  –– June 1940 ––

  CALENDAR

  –– 1940 ––

  The Star, 15th May:

  MURDER IN SOHO

  A murder investigation has begun after the body of a 24-year-old woman was discovered in a property in Soho, W1. The body of Louisa Ann Hart was found in a Dean Street bed-sitting room on Friday, after concerns were raised about her whereabouts. A post-mortem examination that took place on Saturday found that she died from injuries sustained in an assault.

  The Star, 22nd May:

  SOHO MURDER

  WOMAN STRANGLED

  TERRIBLE DETAILS

  The death of a woman whose body was found in a flat in Soho, W1, is being treated as murder, police said today. Officers from the Metropolitan Police were called to the scene in Manette Street in the early hours of yesterday morning. A post-mortem was carried out yesterday on the woman, who was named by sources as Henrietta Clark, 23, but police said they would not yet be releasing any information about how she died. A spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that a murder inquiry has been launched following the discovery of a woman's body in Dean Street, Soho, yesterday.”

  Daily Telegraph, 23rd May:

  SENIOR POLICE OFFICER PROMOTED

  NEW CHIEF CONSTABLE HAS 40 YEARS SERVICE

  After being offered the position of Chief Constable with the Metropolitan Police, William Murphy said it was ‘the proudest moment of my policing career’.

  Mr. Murphy will formally take up his new post in October. He began his career as a beat bobby on the streets of the East End before transferring to the West End, where he was responsible for several major enquiries before taking up his present role.

  “It has been a privilege to serve the people of London for nearly 40 years,” Mr Murphy said. “The Metropolitan Police has made enormous strides over that time and I am pleased to have had the support of loyal officers and members of staff throughout and I look forward to making further progress.”

  The Commissioner, Sir Philip Game, said: “I’ve enjoyed working with Bill. We have implemented changes that have benefited both the force and the public and we will continue to build on our successes and give the public the service they deserve.”

  Mr Murphy, 60, might be giving up day-to-day policing but he leaves two future successors behind. His sons, Frank and Charles, are also officers. “Charles has been a Constable at my old station in Savile Row for eleven years. Frank is in the C.I.D. there. In fact, it’s just been announced that he is going to be promoted to Divisional Detective Inspector. At 40 years old, he’ll be the youngest man to achieve that rank in recent memory. It goes without saying that I’m extremely proud of him.”

  The Star, 24th May:

  “BLACK-OUT RIPPER” CAUSES TERROR ON SOHO STREETS

  By Henry Drake

  The anxiety was almost palpable along London's Skid Row on Wednesday night of last week. Men of commerce who work in the new office buildings nearby hurried home along Oxford Street. Frightened derelicts crowded the dilapidated missions or dozed uneasily in the shelter of local churches. The takings in public houses were down, and the drab streets, lined with pawnshops, vice dens and aging hotels, were uncommonly empty. In the past two weeks two women, both prostitutes, have been found murdered in the alleyways and cheap rooms within the black mile of Soho. Women in the neighbourhood have dubbed him the ‘Black-Out Ripper.’

  The Daily Herald, 25th May:

  ARREST “CLOSE” IN WEST END MURDERS CASE

  The Daily Herald, 26th May:

  ‘BLACK-OUT RIPPER’: ARREST MADE

  The Daily Star, 27th May:

  SUSPECT RELEASED IN SOHO MURDERS ENQUIRY

  The Daily Citizen, 28th May:

  ‘BLACK-OUT RIPPER’ SPEAKS!

  SAYS POLICE BEAT HIM

  FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST OFFICER

  By Henry Drake

  Mr. Duncan Johnson has filed an official complaint against detective Inspector Frank Murphy of the Metropolitan Police after being arrested and placed under suspicion of committing the four recent prostitute slayings in the West End of London. Mr. Johnson was released after twenty hours of questioning and says that he was physically abused while he was in custody. “Inspector Murphy is a brutal thug,” Mr. Johnson said. “I’m going to see that everyone knows it.”

  ANNUAL QUALIFICATION REPORT

  1 May 1939 – 1 May 1940

  Police Constable Charles M Murphy

  No. 540, C Division

  P.C. Murphy had had a difficult year in which he has continued to struggle. Whilst he is clearly determined to succeed as an officer in the Metropolitan Police, the point may have been reached where I can no longer evince any confidence that he will achieve the minimum standards required. Sergeant Cullen and I have both spoken to him in this regard, and tactfully suggested that he might give some thought to alternative careers; unsurprisingly, he strongly disagrees with our assessment and thinks we have underestimated him. I think not, and I have indicated to him that he must demonstrate a significant improvement in his performance in the forthcoming year. Unless he is able to achieve this, I will be recommending that he be dismissed. It has reached the point where his continued service has become a danger to himself and the men with whom he serves.

  Insp. M Cornwall

  The Star, 29th May:

  ANOTHER MURDER IN SOHO

  THIRD WOMAN STRANGLED

  EXCITING SCENES

  Police investigating the murders of two London women say the body of a third woman is also that of a prostitute. The woman's body was discovered by a rent collector on Sunday afternoon at a property in St Anne’s Court. Police said it was too early to link the death to those of Louisa Hart and Henrietta Clark who were found a mile apart in the same area. Detectives said the discovery was being treated as an "unexplained death". Ms Hart, 24, and Ms Clark, 23, worked together and went missing from the ‘red light’ area of the capital.

  News Chronicle, 5th June:

  FOURTH SOHO HORROR

  The body of a woman found in Soho has been identified as missing prostitute Lorna Elizabeth Yoxford. The 32-year-old had been strangled and
left in a one-bedroom apartment in Berwick Street, a post-mortem examination has revealed. Ms Yoxford's body was one of two found in the same vicinity during the past week. Detectives admitted for the first time that the three deaths might be connected.

  MONDAY, 10th JUNE 1940

  1

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FRANK MURPHY stepped away from the girl’s body and went to the window; the yelling from the crowd outside was louder. He pulled the thick black-out curtains aside. It was dusk, eight o’clock, a silvery moon rising above the rooftops. An ARP Warden walked his rounds; tarts and their johns found their alleys; tail-gunners from the Piccadilly Circus Meat Rack flounced theatrically, touting for trade. The noise was coming from the junction with Frith Street, away to the right. A large crowd had gathered outside the Vesuvio Restaurant. A dozen bobbies had formed a buffer and two mounted officers kept skittish horses in line. Frank watched as a pair of men were led out of the front door, escorted on either side by lads from Tottenham Court Road C.I.D. The crowd bayed as a couple of the woodentops stepped up to clear a path to the Black Maria parked by the kerb.

  The restaurant’s large plate glass window shattered as a brick was flung through it.

  “It’s getting worse,” Frank said. He watched as the two men were put into the meat wagon. Locals hammered their fists against the sides. “What a mess.”

  Detective Sergeant Harry Sparks was going through the girl’s belongings. “Mussolini getting chummy with Hitler, that’s that as far as I’m concerned––we can’t take chances with ‘em. Risk of a Fifth Column, that’s what they’re saying. Best keep them out of the way for the duration.”

  Frank let the curtain fall back across the window. “Maybe,” he said. He turned back into the room. It was a tart’s lumber, a cheap single room where punters would come up to get what they’d bought with their oncer: five minutes of slap and tickle and a dose of the clap so bad it’d peel the jewels right off. Cheap furniture, dirty clothes strewn about, unwashed pots and pans in the sink. Squalid. The business transacted inside was gruesome and desperate but it was hardly novel. Frank had seen plenty of rooms like this in Soho and Fitzrovia, especially in the last month.

  A neighbour had noticed the door had been shut for three days and had stopped the local bobby. The woodentop had put his size twelve through the flimsy door and discovered the poor girl. Her body was spread out across the single divan. Her tongue protruded from between bluish lips and the bruises around her throat were dark and evocative, the shape of fingers from where they would have met beneath her chin. She had been stabbed a dozen times, probably more than a dozen, and her blood was on the walls, the floor, soaked into the bedding.

  “What do you want me to do, guv?”

  “Wake Spilsbury up––he better take a look.”

  “What do you reckon?”

  Frank looked at the girl: seventeen or eighteen if she was a day, a grim and brutal life cut short. He’d been working on the case like every other detective on the manor and he recognised the handiwork. “It’s him.”

  He was sure. He’d only taken five days’ rest this time.

  Whoever this poor doxy was, she was one of his.

  Number five.

  2

  THE NEWSROOM WAS FRANTIC. Mussolini’s speech had caused chaos and the noise made it difficult to concentrate: batteries of teleprinters spewed out reams of copy, wire reports with information about what the declaration of war meant to the European political situation; telephones rang as journalists interrogated sources; correspondents fresh from the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall dictated stories to typists. It was chaotic and noisy and busy and Henry Drake loved it. He unrolled his own copy from his typewriter and set it on the desk before him. He pushed back in his chair and stared at the page. The fourth girl had been dead for two days and the police had made no progress.

  He put the pen down and stared absently at the jumble around him. He had a space in the corner of the floor, an L-shaped desk with shelves fixed two high on each side. Organised chaos. His old Remington typewriter. Piles of paper: scraps with telephone numbers, policemen who would give him a tip for a quid; expenses chits; ideas for new angles. The shelves bowed in the middle from the weight of the folders and papers that were stacked haphazardly across them. It was all about the Ripper: interviews with witnesses who could be bought for the price of a pint; copies of the post mortem reports from his contact in the pathologist’s office; a map of Soho was overlaid with photographs of the dead girls, scrawled arrows pointing to where they had been found.

  Framed copies of his front page scoops hung from the only unencumbered space of wall: T.E. Lawrence’s motorcycle crash in Dorset; the Gresford Colliery disaster; a trip to Egypt for the Tutankhamen shrine.

  He looked at the mess, the confusion, the business of it all, and he couldn’t help but be satisfied. Two months short of his thirty-fifth birthday. He’d come a long way.

  He got up to stretch his legs. A thick fug of fag smoke hovered in the room, the ceiling-hung gasoliers cloaked in fuzzy penumbras. He fetched a fresh packet of Players from his jacket and tore away the top. At least they hadn’t put tobacco on the ration yet. Bloody good job. Morale had to be maintained, that was probably the thinking. A smoke always put a man in a better mood. He lit a fag, sucked down happily and looked out of the window. The black-out was in force but it was still impressive: the dark shapes of Fleet Street, heading east to Ludgate Circus, the shadowed dome of St Paul’s dominating the horizon. The Street of Ink: it was where he had always wanted to be. Not bad for a boy from the sticks.

  “Best get your coat on, Drake.”

  The Star’s editor, Edward Chattaway, was at his desk.

  His heart skipped. “Another one?”

  Chattaway nodded.

  Henry stood so quickly he knocked over his chair. “Where?”

  “Soho, again. Byatt just telephoned.”

  “Jesus.” Henry swiped a notepad from the desk and dropped a handful of pens into his pocket.

  “Careful on the way down. Byatt said there are crowds on the street. A couple of windows have been put through.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re interning the Italians. Mussolini’s speech hasn’t gone down well.”

  “I’ll watch my step.”

  “Off you go. Get me something juicy. Front page if it’s any good.”

  3

  P.C. CHARLIE MURPHY STOOD AT THE CORNER of Frith and Old Compton Street, nervously regarding the angry crowd. The two Italians from the restaurant complained as they were manhandled into the back of the Black Maria. No-one paid their protests any heed: the locals slammed their fists against the side of the van, whooping and hollering about Fat Musso. Two soldiers left in the café said they’d be out in their own time, saying they had drinks to finish. They were getting it in the neck, men saying they ought to be ashamed.

  “Consorting with the enemy.”

  “Not fit to wear the uniform.”

  “Leopolds!” a man wearing an Old Contemptibles badge spat at them. “Quislings!”

  The atmosphere was fervid. Someone threw a brick through the window; the crowd roared its approval.

  Charlie fretted with the strap of his baton. His throat was dry. “I don’t like the look of this, gaffer.”

  “Shut it,” Sergeant Cullen said.

  “There aren’t enough of us.”

  “Pull yourself together man.”

  Drinkers were starting to come out of the pubs. Plenty were sauced and antsy and they were absorbed into the crowd, swelling the numbers, lacing the atmosphere with drunken venom. Charlie looked around: locals had appeared in doorways and first-floor windows. Charlie’s stomach felt hollow and his palms itched. What if a spark lit the fuse? What would they do then? They were going to need reinforcements. They were going to need to go in mob-handed.

  “Viva Il Duce!” someone yelled.

  “There’s one!”

  “Do him!”

  Charlie swung about;
the speaker was hanging half off a lamppost, two sheets to the wind, raving drunk. He let go and staggered into the middle of the street, his arm aloft in an SS salute.

  Jeers and boos. “Bloody Wop!”

  “Bloody greaser!”

  The man taunted them.

  “Lynch him!”

  One of the locals ran at the man, tackled him around the waist and drove him down to the cobbles. The two rolled for position, exchanging punches. The crowd roiled towards them.

  Cullen blew his whistle. “In we go!”

  Charlie was shoved forwards by the man behind. He ducked as an old crone emptied her chamber pot from a window overhead. Excrement slopped over one poor copper; others followed suit and soon the cobbles were slippery with shit and piss. Someone threw a punch; officers retaliated with flailing batons, swishing lefts and rights. Charlie went for his own baton but his palm was wet with sweat and he fumbled it, dropped it into the morass of legs. He was buffeted again, knocked out of the way. A fusillade of rotten vegetables, half-bricks and stones sailed down onto them. Shots were fired into the air. Charlie ducked instinctively, someone yelling that they were blanks. He stumbled and fell, landing heavily on his knees. He scrabbled for grip, the cobbles slick, his hands and feet skidding and his legs splaying out behind him. A man toppled against him, knocked him harder to the ground. His forehead slid through sewage: his eyes, his nose, his mouth.